being the mental patient

Reading a cookbook, is for me, soothing like spooning warm water over badly scraped knees. Weeks ago, and in spite of my new love for the Nook I received for Christmas, I ordered myself a new cookbook. An  Everlasting Meal, by Tamar Adler drew me in with the Amazon sample. I've been feeling a bit uninspired, even irritable about the day to day chore of cooking these past few months. Tamar seemed to want to help me remember why I cook, why I eat, and why I am.

And of course, the book was on back order.


My sixteen year old son ran away on Tuesday, as he's prone to do. With another parent in another state, another set of friends, and a river of animosity that runs deep, wide, and fast flowing between us, the best way to crush a parent is at his immediate disposal, should he begin to feel as if he is being parented. He was, and so, he did. He disappeared in the night, turned up nearly 18 hours later, and with not so much as a nod over his shoulder, swam the river and is gone.

The book was waiting for me last night. Highlander and I returned from Des Moines to find ourselves in a situation where we had to stand by while our house was torn up by an angry teenager, or pack his things ourselves and drive them across the frozen countryside for a late night delivery, hoping to be home by midnight, and crying the entire time. The choice was easy. The process was incredibly difficult.

An Everlasting Meal was spooned over me for two hours last night, while I read and reread the Chapter entitled, "How to Boil Water." I finally fell asleep, and woke up with a head cold and the urge to clean out my refrigerator, and eat a hard boiled egg.

Eggs are a particular obsession of mine, and after spending the better part of a year working to change the city code here to allow folks to keep six hens as part of their gardens, I find myself frustrated by my own lack of a chicken coop, hens, and the precious golden yolked eggs they lay. My parents take pity on my situation, and regularly deliver large quantities of the most beautiful farm eggs the world has to offer. Even while sitting in a pit of despair, I can eat an egg and be reminded that I might actually live. Today eating this egg and reading this book, while Highlander vacuums the floors and stops occasionally to stare at me or put his palm on my forehead and say, "today is better than yesterday" it's starting to occur to me that I have a lot of extra time on my hands, if I don't have a son.

Chapter 2 is called How to Teach an Egg to Fly. I love it. And now I will go read it again.